As per the norm, here is my semi-annual blog post announcing something new I’ve done. This time ’round, I’ve written a new track under my “Phonemic” moniker called “Reset It”. More then ever, I cannot seem to find a good genre to toss this into…

My goal as an artist has always been to create something I’ve never heard before and I continue to be tasked with the seemingly impossible duty to categorize my music if I ever wish to market it properly, if at all. It helps even less that I don’t really listen to the type of music I end up creating, so it’s really a hopeless battle I must fight time after time. So if pressured into coming up with something, I’d describe this track as a frantic, experimental drum and bass exploration.

Over the last few years, I’ve developed a persistent interest in live drums emulation focusing less on re-creating the live drum sound but more on limiting my percussive choices. I do firmly stand by the belief that one is often more creative in a situation where choice and resources are limited and I try to use this to my advantage with most tracks I produce. In a way, I tend to write songs as though I’m working with a band that has a limited number of members and instruments.

It’s tough to not be influenced and intimidated by these damn electro artists, however, with all of their crazy sample cutting and bass modulation; modern electro kicks some serious ass production-wise. It’s a nightmare wandering through new tracks on sites like SoundCloud hearing the extreme talent blanketing that genre…

But nonetheless, I’ve got to be proud of what I do. I’m passionate about my craft and I’ve got to let it be its own thing and try to appreciate the sound I tend to gravitate towards. I would love to produce electro (among other genres) but that’s not what I should concern myself with. Being happy with the work I’ve done doesn’t come easy to me so I’m learning to let go of these fleeting urges to fit in with the crowd. To help combat my habit of dumping perfectly good tracks in favour of creating something new instead, I’ve decided to start releasing singles rather than collecting tracks for an album or even an EP.

There are a series of problems I face in trying to write an entire album. First, I simply can’t write music full-time, so a lot of time generally passes between opportunities to seriously sit down and write a song. Secondly, over time my tastes and skills change and evolve, generating large thematic and aural gaps between the tracks I do manage to produce. Trying to forge an album out of these fragmented ideas ends up being more work than I’m able to handle. And so it goes, I never release any music.

And here is the solution, the first of many singles I intend on releasing throughout the year. This has been on my iPod in some form or another for almost 3 months, knocking around in my head slowly moulding itself into what you hear today.

I’m proud to present to you, “Reset It”. Please enjoy.

I’ve decided this poem needs to be highlighted in some way for those people who may not be familiar with it. Despite it’s relative overuse at funerals, it truly is a beautiful poem that simply should resonate emotionally for people.

The sole purpose of this post is to make it known that I find this to be the most appropriate written material for funerals (particularly mine) as it carries no significant religious undertones that tend to skew interpretation of such materials. This is a straight-foward and natural, almost holistic approach to death and I admire it greatly for this.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.*
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.*
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.*
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

I’ve chosen this particular version of the poem as it includes specific lines that carry more meaning for me. They are marked with asterisks.

It isn’t my natural instinct to write down my thoughts. I often think about writing down the various ideas I may randomly have, but taking it to the next level to actually put into words the thoughts in my head never seems to come about. As a consequence, my blog posts are few and far between.

With that said, here be a new blog post. This one is about projects. It’s always about projects.

I recently made a change of locale and now find myself in Victoria, BC. I see this as an opportunity to break out of terrible habits I’ve developed over my lifetime. One of those habits I’ve inadvertently acquired is the inability to finish what I start. My biggest failure is letting things with potential sort of wither away and die. The biggest one¹ being Two Word Heap. I feel so incredibly bad for bringing people into a project that I simply didn’t have time for. I only wish I had a chance to really pour myself into TWH to give it a fair shot at becoming something worthwhile.

But there were hurdles.

Much like a business, a website requires some serious dedication and a little elbow grease to keep it operating smoothly and successfully. Running a website is a challenge. Though this may seem pretty obvious, the truth of it isn’t wholly apparent until you actually try running one yourself.

My good friend and associate, Grant Tingley and I have always wanted an outlet for our creative spew ever since we started Seppo Igloo Productions, a video production group, back in 2003. After Grant moved back to his homeland, Murrieta CA, we had no choice but to pursue an online endeavour of some kind. It was upon this realization we birthed Two Word Heap, an online entertainment magazine.

The idea was to post movie and album reviews, podcasts, things we found amusing or interesting, as well as other random ideas. To begin with, it was just Grant and I contributing but over time, we decided to include other writers in an effort to diversify our content a little.

After gathering about a dozen writers², it became clear within a few months that we had bitten off more than we could chew. Editing incoming articles while simultaneously trying to change and improve the site as we learned the ropes of managing a team ultimately ate up all of my free time and, consequently, drove stress levels far beyond comfort.

In the end, this lead to the site’s eventual demise.

We considered various revivals and such, but I finally resolved to merely start anew. Thus far, only a name has been established. The platform, amongst other aspects, has yet to be determined. I won’t mention the name at this point, but I’m pretty excited at the idea of getting a personal project up and running again.

My music has run stagnant as of late as I focus more on my professional aspirations, which at this point involve working with my Uncle Jay and The MacPros in various capacities, including web design and programming. So why not give myself some much needed focus and get my professional and personal projects in line with each other? By directing my efforts towards design and web work, I think I may be able to do just that.

1. meaning involving the most people [↩]
2. regular and part time contributors [↩]

Some may argue that I spend far too much time worrying about logos and text, but I really believe that it is vital to building a strong brand and identity. My problem, however, is my inability to make up my damn mind. I’m constantly thinking, tinkering, thinking and tinkering some more, often forgetting that the constant changes are a detriment to the very brand and identity I feel so strongly about. My solution to this annoying habit of mine is to more or less get the logo and text design out of the way early on.

While thinking about how to represent Phonemic, I went back to the meaning of the word itself to get some ideas flowing. First thing I decided on what the use of forward slashes before and after the P and H in the word. These slashes¹ are used to indicate phonetic sounds, such as /f/ and /r/. Instead of changing the PH to F to properly represent the phoneme, though, I elected to keep it spelt as /ph/onemic as opposed to /f/onemic simply because it looks less ridiculous.

I did feel that the initial text looked rather plain, so I tried distorting the letters P and H to add a little extra emphasis and make it more interesting. I also decided to try out a different colour scheme.

As I often do, I quickly grew tired of that font and those colours. I wanted to create something more compelling, so I tried out some more modern text in contrast to a somewhat aged look, colour-wise. I also felt the need to switch the forward slashes in favour of vertical bars² simply because the slashes felt very awkward with the new font.

I wanted to expand more on the colour palette and also explore some actual logo possibilities. I ended up just isolating the |PH| because, really, how the heck does one illustrate a phoneme or something phonemic?

I like the sort of “cut out” look of the last image, but I thought I’d try to go for something that would work better at different sizes and I figured I may as well try expanding that colour palette even more. I really like this style as it creates some interesting depth and gives it more power. This is important as the lack of an actual logo/shape with the text kind of empties it of the stock it needs to stand out.

The text design is sure to change as time goes on, but I’m actually quite satisfied with what I have at this point in time. I’ve still got to get some kind of symbol or logo of some kind together as well, so expect follow-up on that in the near future.

I’m still very much a novice in the way of design, so I’m always learning new techniques and methods to recreate the images in my head. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please feel free to let me know!

1. virgules [↩]
2. pipes [↩]